Kathryn Anne Edwards, Columnist

The People’s Inflation Is Still a Big Problem

For many Americans, the word describes the struggle to make ends meet, not just the change in consumer prices.

How free is this market?

Photographer: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images
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What is inflation? Officially, it’s the change in average consumer prices over a period — a number that has, in recent months, been easing down toward the US Federal Reserve’s 2% target. But for many people, it’s a way to describe in one word the struggle to make ends meet.

On the latter front, the battle against inflation is far from won.